


Icarus

by Nellie



Category: Inception
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anal Sex, Gore, Limbo, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 13:28:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nellie/pseuds/Nellie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur thought he could be Theseus, defeating the labyrinth of the mind and leading Eames to freedom.</p><p>He was wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icarus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ninemoons42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Prometheus](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/3035) by ninemoons42. 



“Arthur!”

Arthur rubs his eyes with his free hand, glancing across at the fuzzy numbers on the bedside alarm clock. “Dom? What’s wrong?”

“You didn’t tell me you were back in the States. You know I would have put you up.”

Arthur blinks. “I’m not. I’m still in London.” He lets his head fall back on the pillow before adding, “It’s three thirty in the morning.”

“Oh.”

There’s a moment of silence, long enough for Arthur to feel the heavy weight of sleep start seeping back into his eyelids.

“Just, Eames is doing a job with Newbery, and I know how you have a policy of never doing jobs with him alone so I assumed—“

“Eames is doing _what?_ ”

*

Within a few hours Arthur is working his way through customs at LAX. Within a few more he’s standing outside the rented apartment with his fingers curled around his Glock. There’s no noise coming from inside… except when he leans closer, and the faint aspirations he can recognise anywhere as the sound of an active PASIV are seeping through the wood.

He can hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears as he hesitates. It’s not like Eames never works jobs on his own, even volatile ones like Newbery. It’s not like he needs a white knight to save him.

Arthur’s fingers tighten on the gun. He’s here now, so the least he can do is make sure everything is going to plan.

Picking the lock is easy. Accepting that the dark room is trashed, furniture upturned and glass strewn as if there’s been a struggle, is a lot harder.

Arthur swallows as he picks his way across the floor to the red glow of the PASIV sitting on the coffee table like some obscene parody of an alarm clock. The numbers are blinking, 9 9 9 9.

It’s a malfunction, whether deliberate or not, and Arthur turns his attention to the lines as unease chews at his belly. One has been ripped out and the torn tubing is dripping Somnacin onto the carpet. The second terminates in a bloody cannula.

When he tugs on the third, trying to reel it back in, there’s a groan from behind the couch.

Even if he thinks about it, Arthur has no idea when he started caring so much about the trouble Eames manages to get himself into when he’s not there. There’s nothing romantic about it, but he supposes that’s just like them really. The significant part is how his stomach churns when he follows the line and finds Eames sprawled up against the back of the couch with the cannula still buried in his wrist.

“Fucking hell, Eames,” Arthur mutters, checking his pulse, his breathing, letting himself run one hand briefly over his rough cheek.

He tries to ignore the dull panic worming its way up from his stomach into his chest. It’s fine. He can handle this.

Arthur gets up and sweeps the apartment, quickly but thoroughly. Then he switches on a light and drags a clean line out of the PASIV. Before he slips it in, he sends a text message to Dom.

 _it went bad. if you dont hear from me in 24 hrs, send in the cops_

He adds the address and stares at the message for a few seconds. It’s risky, but there’s not exactly anybody else in L.A that he trusts to help them out on this, not now, without knowing what went wrong or who might want Eames dead.

The cannula is familiar in Arthur’s hand and he musters up everything he remembers about retrieving teammates who fall too deep into dreams, reminds himself that he was _trained_ for this long before he was trained to turn the PASIV to crime.

It hurts when he slips the needle into the vein but he doesn’t have time to dwell on the sharp pain before his eyes are slipping closed on the next pulse of the pump, breathing slowing to match the aspirations of the machine.

*

Arthur falls.

No, that’s not quite right… he searches at first, down through the layers of dreams the team was using. The park, the casino, the suburban house with the flagpole in the front yard. Arthur would be impressed if he wasn’t so fucking pissed off. He’s not even mad at Newbery, really. Assholery and self-preservation is to be expected from him.

It’s Eames he’s mad at. It’s Eames he’s thinking of as he searches downwards.

It’s Eames he’s cursing when he takes that one tiny side-step too far, and plummets.

*

The rock beneath his cheek is hot enough to sear skin, and Arthur jerks upright with a yelp. He squints into the harsh sunlight, just breathing as the glare settles and he can make out the shattered rock spreading as far as he can see.

“So this is what limbo looks like,” he says out loud, because vocalisation is one of the first techniques they were taught to use to stave off psychological disorientation.

Arthur stands up. “I need to find Eames.” His voice sounds hollow, swallowed up by all the space around him, by the almost unbearable heat. “I need to find Eames,” he repeats, taking the first step. “I need to find Eames.”

He doesn’t say the rest out loud, even as the heat creeps up through the soles of his shoes and blisters form on his feet, sharp pain to counteract the soft veil falling over his consciousness.

 _I need to find Eames. I need to tell Eames what a fucking idiot he is. I need to kiss him and fuck him and make sure he knows why he’s never taking a job without me again._

Arthur keeps walking.

*

Days pass. Maybe. The burning sun overhead never falters, so it’s hard to tell.

“I need to find Eames.” One step.

“I need to find Eames.” Two steps.

Arthur shed his jacket more steps ago than he can count. He keeps his shirt, sweat-soaked and clinging to his skin, but only because he knows it’ll stop the sun from burning his shoulders.

He stops and licks his cracked lips, lifting a hand to shade his eyes. There’s a black blot against the sun he hasn’t seen before. He squints as it wheels closer.

“Wings would be so fucking useful right now,” he says as he watches the huge eagle circling, the white stippling at the tips of its glossy black feathers glinting in the sunlight.

“Wings would make this easy,” Arthur tells the eagle, and starts walking again.

 _I need to find Eames. Wings would make this easy. I need to find Eames. Wings would make this easy._

*

Arthur takes his shirt off when it doesn’t fit anymore, straining tight against the broad muscle and bone of the wings sweeping out of his shoulders in two graceful curves. Folded, the flight feathers drag against the blasted rock. When he spreads them, savouring the power in the new limbs, he can’t reach the tips with his fingers.

Something inside him twists and whispers. _Icarus flew too close to the sun._

The words hurt, drawing out the raw emotion he hadn’t let himself feel while Eames pointed at the pottery and described the myths behind the black figures painted on them. Lush tales from a lush mouth, and Arthur wanted to kiss him even then.

But he didn’t.

It’s not even his own voice in his head anymore as he flexes his wings and feels the fresh breeze tremble through the feathers.

 _Icarus flew too close to the sun and he burned, wings melting, nothing but his own deadly ambition to comfort him as he fell._

Arthur wraps the words in Eames’s voice around him like a shield, and flies.

*  
 _I need to find Eames. I need to kiss Eames. I need to fuck Eames._

Deeper, somewhere, beneath the wind whistling through his feathers and the steady beat of his wings, there’s something else too.

 _I need to wake Eames up._

*

Arthur finds him quickly. Or slowly. All that matters is that he finds him, curled peacefully at the base of a ragged rock.

 _I love you_ , he thinks as Eames wakes and mouths words at him that he can’t hear.

Arthur glides down, the cool rock in the shadow of the outcrop pure pleasure beneath his blistered feet. He’s standing close enough to touch Eames if he wanted but, his hands stay still by his sides. His wings reach out instead, curving around Eames, drawing him in closer and trapping them both in a cool, dark cocoon.

Eames smiles at him. “Come on, darling.”

 _I need to find Eames. I need to kiss Eames. I need to fuck Eames._

Arthur grabs him by the waist and kisses him, exactly like he’s wanted to for months now. He swallows Eames’s moan and slides his tongue into his mouth, wet, desperate for more of those sounds that mean Eames understands, that Eames is his.

Eames’s skin tastes like sweat when Arthur kisses across his jaw, sucks down along the curve of his neck before nipping hard enough to make Eames arch against him.

 _I need to wake Eames up._

He sucks harder, clamping his teeth down on the meaty part of Eames’s throat just beside the ridged line of his trachea.

 _I need to wake Eames up._

Arthur bites down.

Blood spurts in his mouth, hot and coppery, straight from the artery. He worries at the flesh with his teeth ( _beak_ ) until Eames is still, slumping down to the rock.

Arthur blinks and licks the blood from his lips, tilting his head.

 _I need to find Eames. I need to kiss Eames. I need to fuck Eames._

*

Eames is on his back, sweat dripping down his face to settle at the hollow of his throat.

Arthur watches it quiver on his skin as he sinks down onto Eames’s cock, slowly, savouring the slick stretch of Eames finally, finally inside him. He braces his hands on the solid muscle of Eames’s chest, flaring his wings wide at the hot pleasure of Eames’s little upward thrusts.

The rock scrapes his knees but Arthur doesn’t care as he grinds down, controls the rhythm, rolls his hips back and forth painfully slow until Eames is grabbing at his thighs.

“Arthur, fuck, _faster.”_

Arthur listens. He uses his wings to help balance and lifts himself up, off Eames’s cock, before sliding back down. It’s deep and perfect, filling him like it was made for his pleasure alone.

Sweat winds down between his feathers, along the length of his spine to the curve of his ass as he fucks himself on Eames’s cock. Nothing matters except for how this feels, spread open and claimed and claiming. The sun is so bright that he can see it through his eyelids when he closes his eyes and tips his head back, thrusting down.

 _Icarus flew too close to the sun._

There’s a warning in the words as Arthur flaps his wings, beats at the air and cries out as he comes. Eames’s cock buried deep inside him, Eames’s broad hands wrapped around his thighs are the only things keeping him tethered down.

Arthur wants to fly. He wants to be free.

 _I want to wake up._

There’s a knife in his hand. It doesn’t matter how.

He stabs down as Eames bucks his hips and comes with a low groan. Arthur can feel it, Eames’s come warm inside him just like his blood is warm on Arthur’s hands. Blood gushes from the gut wound, mixing with the sticky white of Arthur’s come and soft down from his wings.

 _I need to find Eames. I need to kiss Eames. I need to fuck Eames._

*

Arthur’s wings drape over them like a cloak, protecting them from the harsh rays of the sun. The feathers slide against his skin with every thrust, whisper-soft and cool.

It’s gentle this time, for once. Eames is slick and pliant beneath him, back arching into every push of Arthur’s hips. Arthur lays his cheek against the broad muscle of Eames’s back just to feel it flex against his skin. He’s getting close, tightening his grip on Eames’s hips and rocking harder into him.

 _I need to wake Eames up._

He skims his hands up along Eames’s ribs and over his shoulders until they’re tucked firmly around his neck. The pulse there under his fingers is strong, racing, an urgent beat.

Pain erupts between his shoulder blades before he can close his hands around that fragile beat. Then again, and a third time, agony rushing through him as steel pierces flesh and feather. It burns.

 _Icarus burned,_ Eames said, somewhere a long time ago.

Arthur stumbles back before falling to his knees. Every movement jostles the arrows lodged in his back, making them slice deeper.

He hiccups, and tastes blood on the back of his tongue.

“You don’t look like Herakles,” Eames is saying, his voice raw.

Arthur falls forward. He can see the intruder from the corner of his eye; a waistcoat and bow and face so familiar and terrifying that it makes him shudder.

“And aren’t you glad of it,” he says, Arthur says, the projection says.

Arthur barks out a pained laugh, spitting more blood onto the stone as he realises what a terrible mistake he’s made.


End file.
